In final debate, records attacked

Share via e-mail

Representatives Edward J. Markey and Stephen F. Lynch dropped the gloves Tuesday night during their final debate in Springfield. Polls have shown Markey as the front-runner, but a confident Lynch told reporters “I’m going to win.”

SPRINGFIELD — The final debate of the Senate Democratic primary devolved into an exchange of insults and character allegations Tuesday night, as Representatives Edward J. Markey and Stephen F. Lynch abandoned collegiality for a heated confrontation with one week remaining in their contest.

Meeting at a Springfield television station, Markey and Lynch feuded over each other’s Homeland Security records, a particularly salient policy topic after last week’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings.

The sharpest exchange, though, came when Markey said Lynch’s opposition to federal financial assistance for manufacturers prompted an endorsement for Markey from an automobile workers union. Lynch retorted that he had voted for that bailout, frequently praised by the Obama administration as a successful countermeasure to the recession.

Lynch voted in favor of a House measure that would have aided the domestic auto industry, but against the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Washington used TARP funds to assist Detroit.

Public polling has shown Markey as the front-runner, but strategists in both camps acknowledge the politically destabilizing impact of last week’s terrorist attacks that killed three people and injured 264.

Lynch showed a renewed vigor at a debate televised Monday on WBZ-TV and cosponsored by the Globe, and advisers said it was indicative of the aggressive tone he would deploy during the primary campaign’s final stretch.

In Springfield, both candidates appeared to eschew the reverential tone used by all of the campaigns in the days since the bombings, eager to cut into each other and willing to engage in the most personal back-and-forth of the race. The debate had been rescheduled after all five Senate campaigns suspended active electioneering last week following Monday’s bombings.

Parrying against Lynch’s charges from the night before, Markey said his fellow Democrat had misrepresented his positions on port security legislation.

“Many of his charges are desperate, they’re sad, they’re Karl Rove-ian in their inaccuracies,” Markey said after the debate, alluding to former President George W. Bush’s political guru.

Asked after the hourlong debate about his relations with Markey, Lynch replied, “It’s not as bad as it looks.

“I don’t know what would lead him to say something like that, as baldly false,” Lynch said of Markey’s auto bailout charge. “So, I was thinking, well, maybe he thinks that this is the last debate, so he can put that out there.”

Lynch, for the second consecutive night, took off the gloves and went right at Markey over Homeland Security, questioning the votes the dean of the state’s congressional delegation cast against establishing the joint terrorism task force that helped track the alleged Marathon bombers and against a port security bill.

Markey told reporters he voted against the task force because it would have permitted the US military to play a role in domestic law enforcement.

Returning to Markey’s national security record, which he had hammered the night before, Lynch said, “You’re so far out on the left, Ed,” and called his record “ridiculous.”

Markey again hit Lynch on his vote against the 2010 federal health care expansion, pointing to Lynch as an outlier among Massachusetts officeholders in opposing the legislation. “You were the only one in our delegation that voted no,” Markey said. Lynch shot back, “I think I’m the only one that read the bill.”

Markey continued his attack, saying that Lynch was “out of line” in voting against the health care bill, invoking the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who had long worked for health care expansion.

“This is what the Democratic Party is all about, it’s ensuring universal access to health care,” Markey said.

Earlier Tuesday, Lynch’s campaign launched a new television ad, a warm spot focused on last week’s attacks. Markey returned to the air with a previously aired ad highlighting women’s issues.

Voters will choose the Democratic nominee on April 30, the same day as the Republican primary. State Representative Daniel B. Winslow, former US attorney Michael J. Sullivan, and private equity investor Gabriel E. Gomez are vying for the GOP nomination.